Hits and Misses:

FIGHTING FOR CHANGE The mother of two young Santa Cruz women who were killed in a car wreck is making sure her daughters did not die in vain. Cally Houck has fought since 2004 for legislation forcing rental car companies to immediately ground cars when safety recalls are issued. The young women, Raechel, 24, and Jacqueline, 20, died in a crash after renting a PT Cruiser from Enterprise with a power-steering problem, a defect under safety recall. A jury awarded the parents of the Houck sisters $15 million in damages, but until Thursday, when three U.S. senators announced a pact with rental car companies, Enterprise took the position it had changed its recall policies and legislation was not needed. Cally Houck, who lives in Ojai, wants the legislation enacted this year.

Cuckoo for rare cuckoo Dedicated birders statewide are flocking to Watsonville's Ramsay Park area to add a rare Eurasian visitor to their lifetime bird lists. The Common Cuckoo was first spotted near downtown Watsonville on Friday. It was only the second recorded sighting ever in the lower 48 states. The bird looks to be molting, which means it could be sticking around for a while, feeding on caterpillars. Welcome to town, birders and bird alike!

DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT Tens of thousands of students in state colleges and universities were handed a rare financial break last week, when Gov. Jerry Brown signed two bills focused on creating the infrastructure needed to support a free digital textbook program. The first bill requires textbooks and course materials for 50 of the most popular lower-division courses be provided digitally, which students can access using computers or mobile devices. The courses will be selected by UC, CSU and community college system faculty. A companion bill creates the California Open Source Digital Library, which will host the electronic textbooks. Hopefully these bills usher in a new era of cheaper college texts. On average, college students taking a full course load spend about $1,650 each year on texts.

MISSES

BACTERIA BEACH Hopefully we are not the only ones who find it mind-boggling Santa Cruz County still hasn't gotten its arms around its two glaring pollution problems. In Heal the Bay's recent End of Summer water-quality report card, the nonprofit concluded county beaches are generally quite clean, but awarded Capitola Beach a C and Santa Cruz's Cowell Beach an F. The latter was No. 2 on Heal the Bay's list of worst California beaches. It's been at the No. 1 or No. 2 spot since making the list in 2009. County health officials have tracked the high bacterial counts for the past four years, but the cause remains a mystery. Kelp that washes up at Cowell's is a likely culprit. The city has been removing the rotting kelp to see if that improves water quality, but still there are no conclusive results. The study is proof positive not all publicity is good publicity. Let's make the grade in 2013.

TIMES A CHANGING It's a sad time in New Orleans, now the largest metropolitan area in the country without its own daily paper. We certainly understand the realities of the evolving media world, but this change seems particularly grim. The Times-Picayune earlier this year announced large-scale cuts as well as plans to reduce publication to three times a week in favor of an expanded website. Sunday's edition was the end of the old publishing schedule. We, too, are working hard to serve readers through our website, E-edition, mobile apps, videos, blogs and continuing-to-evolve Community Media Lab, but have a hard time envisioning a day anytime soon without a hard-copy daily newspaper.